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2014 Planting List

We’ve been deep into garden planning the last few weeks. There is still much planning to do, specifically what will be planted where and how much. But we have finished the list of what we are planting and which varieties.

It is going to be an exciting year because we will be putting in our fruit trees (orchard) and berry bushes, as well as finishing the construction of the final terrace and garden boxes in the veggie garden. We will be adding a few more strawberry plants to the strawberry patch, as well as some berry bushes along the back edge of it, and other berry bushes around the yard. We will be doing another compost heap pumpkin/squash patch, twice as big this year. We will be experimenting with different ways to plant potatoes. And, we will be trying tomatoes in pots indoors (and out on the nice days). Our climate gives us many challenges and the tomato and potato experiments will hopefully help us figure out how to accomplish a good harvest of those.

We are also planning to build the greenhouse this summer, but it wont be useable for this season. The greenhouse will ultimately be where the tomatoes are grown in the future.

We still need to talk to an expert to confirm our fruit tree varieties to be sure we can successfully grow them here, but we have narrowed it down to what we believe to be the best choices.

So here is what we are planting 2014:

Apples: Gala and Yellow Delicious

Asparagus: already in the ground from last year

Basil: Sweet Basil

Beans: Provider, Purple Queen, and Gold Rush

Beets: Touchstone Gold

Brussel Sprouts: Jade Cross

Cabbage: Earliana

Carrot: St. Valery and Royal Chantenay

Cherry: Mesabi Cherry and Cupid Dwarf

Cilantro

Comfrey

Cucumbers: Burpee Pickler and White Wonder

Currant: Black, Red, and Golden

Garlic: Already in the ground from last fall (our first try at fall planting – supposedly isn’t the best way to do it in our climate but wanted to try since spring planting isn’t working either)

Honeyberries: Wild and Honey Wild

Lettuce: Several choices, haven’t fully narrowed it down yet

Marigolds

Nasturtiums

Mint

Onion: White Ebenezer

Oregano

Parsley

Pea (sweet): Dakota

Pea (snap): Mammoth Melting Sugar and Sugar Ann

Pear: Parker and D’Anjou

Plum: Pipestone and Superior

Potato: Red Ruby, Yellow Finn, and ?

Pumpkin: Small Sugar, Fairytale Pumpkin, Long Island Cheese

Rhubarb? Not sure on this

Rosemary

Sage

Spinach: Gigante Inverno and Melody

Squash: Ebony Acorn, Burpee Butterbush, and Bugle Butternut

Strawberry: Alexandria and Fort Laramie

Tomato: Red Pear, Orange Pixie, Glacier Early, and two types of seedlings from a friend

Welcome to Willow Creek Farm!

We are happy to have you visiting us!
I am wife to an amazing man ("Mountain Man") for 17 years now. We have been blessed with 5 children. Two girls: "Sunshine" (12) and "Little Miss" (10). And three boys: "Young Man" (14), "Braveheart" (8), and "Mr. Smiles" (1).
I enjoy being a wife and homemaker, homeschooling mom, farm girl, and helping my husband run our custom fiber processing mill.
In this blog we are sharing what we learn as we build and run our little homestead at high-altitude to provide natural, home-raised food for our family.

Come walk with us through the ups and downs of family farming in the Rocky Mountains!